From Gender Binary to Gender Identity

(Qua)Ternary
V1.0, comments are appreciated

Jan A. Bergstra
j.a.bergstra@uva.nl, janaldertb@gmail.com
Informatics Institute, University of Amsterdam,
The Netherlands

Laurens J. Buijs
laurensbuijs@protonmail.com
La Convivencia, Amsterdam,The Netherlands

September 12, 2023

Abstract
Gender theory still reflects the binary origins of thoughts on gender: male or fe-
male. Gender may be thought of as ternary including a third ‘neutral gender’. Ternary
gender terminology turns out to be confusing more often than not. We suggest to in-
corporate gender identity as a first class component in ternary gender theory.

1 The gender binary is becoming outdated

We assume that biological sex for humans admits a neutral category meant for the classifi-
cation of individuals for whom either of the signed categories (sex labels) male and female
is inapplicable. We prefer to minimize the use of the term nonbinary for reasons that were
set out in [8]. We prefer to speak of male and female as signed labels for biological sex

c Laurens J. Buijs & Jan A. Bergstra Licence CC BY-SA 4.0

Amsterdam Gender Theory Research Team AGTRT-message-2023:2 V1.0
Messages: short Notes, Opinions, & Comments
and/or gender. We consider both the biological sex binary as well as the gender binary
(meant as true principles about human life) to be outdated relics from past times which
should not be taken as a point of departure for further development of gender theory. The
small fraction of persons to whom a signed b-sex, and for that reason as signed gender
cannot be assigned must be taken into account, and doing so refutes the binary model.
The latter assertion is not uncontroversial, as it implies that we hold that the official
RCC view on matters of gender (see e.g. [11]) is outdated in scientific terms. Whatever
the value or use of the RCC has been in the past, its validity has become so problematic
that a revision is needed. We are very aware that such processes take ample time and
that it would be wrong to expect the RCC to change its views overnight rather than with
process that may easily take decades if not centuries, we also accept that a formidable
resilience against ideological change constitutes a key value of institutionalized religion
which comes at a price. We assume nevertheless that a gender ternary rather than a gender
binary will lie ahead of us.

2 The gender (qua)ternary

It seems to us that a common perspective on gender categorzation (following the terminol-
ogy of Barnes 2022 [1]) is as follows:
(i) an adult human (in the terminology of say Byrne 2020 [9]) is either a man, or a
woman, or a non-binary person, and
(ii) a non-binary person is someone who neither identifies for 100 % as male nor iden-
tifies for 100 % as female,
(iii) the mentioned thee categories apply to all individuals and are mutually exclusive
(the gender ternary principle).
Taking (i) and (ii) together one may conclude that a man self-identifies as male for 100
% and a woman self-identifies as female for 100 %. However, we support the following
Claim:

Claim 2.1. A man may self-identify as male for less than 100% and a woman may self-
identify as female for less than 100 %.

In other words: we do not believe that it is practical to characterize a non-binary person

as a person for whom both 100 % self-identification as male and 100% self-identification
as female fails to apply.

Claim 2.2. The use of neutral (and of non-binary) gender must be embedded in (explained
on the basis of) a version of gender theory which explains male and female gender as well.

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Claim 2.3. The use of neutral (and of non-binary) gender identity must be embedded in
(explained on the basis of) a version of gender theory which explains male and female
gender identity as well.

For the signed gender labels male and female there is an extensive though) disparate
literature regarding the conditions under which a person is a man or is a woman. In the
case of the non-binary gender there seems not to be much philosophical literature on that
matter. in any case we advocate the use of a 3G⊥ (also: (qua)ternary) model.

Definition 2.1. (3G⊥ model) 2G gender labels are male and female, also called signed
gender labels.
3G gender labels are: male, female, and neutral. The fourth label is ⊥ indicating the
absence of information about gender.
Each person at any time is supposed to ‘have’ a gender male, female, or neutral.
However, the gender of a person may not be known.
A gender kind of gender g is the category of persons having gender g. The gender
kinds for male, female, and neutral are disjoint.

Remarkably the 3G⊥ model model does not provide an obvious explanation of the term
‘non-binary’. However, the phrase non-binary gender is well-understood as follows.

Definition 2.2. A person P has non-binary gender if the gender of P is neutral.

We adopt the following conventions:

(i) When reading the adjective ‘non-binary’ in a text we will first of all understand that
as ‘having a non-binary gender identity’.
(ii) Only if it is made explicit that ‘non-binry gender’ is actually meant, we will read
the adjective non-binary as ‘having a non-binary gender’.
(iii) We resist any implicit identification of ‘gender’ and ‘gender identity’. Some ver-
sions of gender theory adopt that identification, while other versions of gender theory do
not.

3 Separating categorization from gender self-identification

Following e.g. Barnes 2022 [1] we distinguish between gender identity and gender cate-
gorization. Gender categorization is the outcome of a categorization process which takes a
person’s gender self-identification as one of various inputs. We find that a better phrasing
for the gender ternary is in terms of gender identities:

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3.1 The gender identity (qua)ternary
Claim 3.1. (Gender identity ternary assumption.) There are three gender identities: male
identity, female identity, and non-binary identity. These three identities apply to all adult
humans for whom a gender is known and are mutually exclusive. If no gender identity is
known the ‘gender identity’ is indicated as ⊥.

The gender ternary assumption does not presuppose and does not reject the contro-
versial principle of the equivalence of gender self-identification (which determines gender
identity) and gender categorization (which determines gender). For a critique of said prin-
ciple of equivalence we refer to [7] and [1].

3.2 (Qua)Ternary claims for gender and b-sex

Claim 3.2. (Gender ternary assumption.) There are three gender labels: male, female,
and neutral. These three categories apply to all adult humans and are mutually exclusive.
A person is neutral by definition when neither male nor female. If no information is known
about gender that state of affairs is indicated with ⊥.

When no information on gender is known (i.e. all that is known is ⊥) one mays see
this as an indication to categorize a person as neutral. However, the latter categorization
is unwarranted because neutral gender incorporates the presence of information about the
non-applicability of male and female.
Gender may but need not be identified with b-sex (biological sex in the notation of [2]).
In [3] we argue, thereby contradicting the thesis of [9] that gender and b-sex can (and must)
be distinguished. We wish to notice that we reject the TERF claim that transgendering is
impossible by definition. Systematic surveys of arguments against the TERF position can
be found in [10] and [13].

Claim 3.3. (B-sex (qua)ternary assumption.) There are three labels for b-sex (biological
sex): male, female, and neutral. These three identities apply to all adult humans and are
mutually exclusive. A person is of neutral b-sex by definition when (positively) neither
male nor female. in the absence of any information the b-sex of a person is denoted as ⊥.

B-sex is by no means a concept about which a universal consensus can be found. How-
ever, the b-sex ternary assumption can be maintained for a range of different definitions
of b-sex. For instance supporters of the b-sex binary may express their views by claiming
that the neutral b-sex category is empty.

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4 Accusations: the accusation of being gender critical
In [2] we have surveyed accusations which play a role in the world-wide debate on gender.
For the notion of an accusation we refer to [5, 6].
A common accusation is of being gender critical. Consistent with [13] we hold that
gender critical refers to views which adopt the possibility of transgendering after medical
affirmation treatments. We adopt the following description of being gender critical.

Claim 4.1. Gender-critical refers (by way of an accusation) to those who support opposi-
tion to the idea that whoever adopts a certain gender identity is entitled without reservation
to the corresponding gender categorization.

Our proposal for a gender identity ternary as a leading principle is based on a distinc-
tion between gender categorization and gender identity. Following the above Definition
of what ‘gender critical’ means our proposal itself expresses a gender critical attitude, and
for that reason may invite some to express their disagreement with our proposal by way
of an accusation of us (or our views) being gender critical. We will not deny, reject, or
even oppose such an accusation. We refer to the website of the ‘Gender Critica Research
Network’ (Open University UK1 ) for additional information concerning workers in gender
studies who self-classify as being gender critical.

5 Concluding remark
Speaking of the gender identity ternary extends the language of formal gender theory with-
out changing much of its content. Personally we hold that the neutral gender tends to be
overextended to cases without sufficient grounding, which may be detrimental for the per-
sons involved. We also believe that gender identity is not the only factor which determines
gender, and that a proper understanding of gender requires a compromise between taking
body and mind into account. Further we believe that primary and secondary gender iden-
tity ought to be distinguished where androgyny (which recently was positively recalled
in [12]) opens the door to conceptualizing secondary gender identity.
We conclude with a remark on the distinction between neutral and ⊥. It is because
of the presence of neutral that ⊥ matters. Care has to be taken that neutral gender is not
playing the role of a default gender in the absence of sufficient and credible information
about a person’s gender.
1
https://www5.open.ac.uk/health-wellbeing/research-themes/
gender-critical-research-network

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References
[1] Elizabeth Barnes. Gender without gender identity: the case of cognitive disability.
Mind, 131 (523) 838-864 (2022).

[2] Jan A. Bergstra and Laurens J. Buijs. Formal Gender Theory: A Logical Perspec-
tive on Dembroff versus Byrne. AGTRT Report 1, https://gender-theory.
org/reports/agtrt-1-formal-gender-theory (2023).

[3] Jan A. Bergstra and Laurens J. Buijs. Biological sex as used in Dembroff ver-
sus Byrne. AGTRT Report 4, https://gender-theory.org/reports/
agtrt-4-biological-sex (2023).

[4] Jan A. Bergstra and Laurens J. Buijs. Jurisdictions and gender categorization proto-
cols. AGTRT Report 5, https://gendertheoryorg.files.wordpress.
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[5] Jan A. Bergstra and Marcus Düwell. Accusation theory. Transmathematica, https:
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[6] Jan A. Bergstra and Marcus Düwell. Special accusation types: anonymous accu-
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